He Loves My Hair Up

One of Jackson’s first phrases was “Hair back.” Before this, he would point to my hair and just say, “Back. Back.” And now, still, at 2 1/2, he cares just as much. We have a morning ritual. I come in his room and lean over his crib and say “Good morning baby. How was your night?” And he responds with one of two phrases. He’ll either say with a disappointed, slightly surprised look, as if he can’t believe we are still going over this, “Put your hair up, mommy,” or with a smile of approval and gratitude, he’ll exclaim “Your hair’s up!”

Yesterday we went through this conversation again after a breakfast of blueberry waffles (recipe to come soon). He asked me out of the blue, “Is daddy going to pick me up from school tomorrow.” “No, I will, like I always do,” I told him. “And you’ll wear your hair up?” he asked. (Seriously? I thought I had at least another year or two before he cared what I looked like in front of his school friends! What kind of pressure is being put on two year olds these days?)

Tuesday I wore my hair down, but before cooking dinner I went to my room to put it up. Jackson and I bumped into each other as I was walking out of the room. He stumbled backwards, looked up and grinned sheepishly, almost blushing, “You put your hair up for me.” And then I knelt down to my knees, looked him in the eyes and asked, “Do you like when I wear my hair up?” “Yes, I like it.” “Then yes, it was for you. Thank you for thinking I look pretty with my hair up.”

You see, wearing my hair up is the tell-tale sign that I haven’t washed my hair today. It says I’ve been too busy to stop and take care of myself or that I don’t value my appearance. Every mom book out there suggests, “Even if you can’t do it all, at the very least, take a shower, wash your hair and get dressed for the day.” This is bare minimum self-care 101 folks…and I so often don’t get to it.

But Jackson sees the mop of curls wrapped up and twisted in a messy pile on top of my head as beautiful. That messy updo is the sign of a lady who spent breakfast sitting across from her son telling him made up stories about his Adventures on the Construction Site. It’s the sign of a woman who, on at least a weekly basis, snoozes her alarm because her boy woke up asking to sleep in mommy’s bed and she doesn’t want to wake him. It’s evidence she spent her morning pretending to fix the toy weedeater (that isn’t actually broken), instead of leaving him to play alone while she showered.

In reality, it probably all began because he didn’t like how my hair tickled his face when I rocked him as a baby or because on a bad hair day, I closely resemble Medusa. A few days ago, a picture of Prince was up on the tv screen, and he told me matter of factly, sure as could be, “That’s a monster.” We had a talk about all of God’s people being beautiful…but in truth, I might actually terrify him with my wild curls coming out of my head like tentacles looking for prey. Either way, it’s nice to be looked at in awe in my natural too tired for style mama state.

He loves my hair up.

Looking for a picture for this post was eye-opening. I hardly have any pictures of me in my natural state of sweats with my messy updo. I’ve either deleted them all or wouldn’t let them be taken in the first place. Wow. I really thought I was good about “keeping it real,” but either that’s not as true as I thought, or I’ve showered a whole lot more than I remember.